Wine Guides
Man has known wine from as long as he can remember. References to wine are also made in the Bible but drinking of wine was common much before the time of Christ. There is archeological evidence which suggests that wine was produced in Iran in 6000 B.C.
Even today wine is used in the religious rituals of Jews and Christians. Here it is important to add that, wine is just a part of the religious ceremony and not consumed for pleasure, fun or amusement.
These uses apart, wines are consumed all over the world for the sheer joy of drinking.
Certain studies and reports, stating the health benefits of drinking wine have just served to increase people’s love for wine.
In earlier times wine was produced not only from grapes but also from other fruits like apples and berries.
Today wine is produced from grapes of the species ‘Vitis vinifera’. The more popular varieties are Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Merlot. If one of these varieties is used as the main source of grapes, then the wine so produced is referred to as varietal. If the wine is made from a mixture of varieties, then it is referred to as blended.
Wine is also made from varieties obtained by cross breeding two species of grapes. In North America wine is also made from grapes which are normally consumed as fruit.
A ‘vintage wine’ denotes the year the wine was produced in. If the wine is of a superior quality it can improve in taste as time passes if it is stored correctly. Some traders store wine of superior quality to sell it off at a later date to get a better price for the wine. For a wine to be categorized as from a particular vintage, it has to be produced from a particular grape yield of a particular year.
At least 95 percent of it should be produced from that particular batch of grapes. All the wine bottled from a particular batch of grapes thus is considered to be of that particular vintage.
Vintage wines of superior quality often fetch a higher price.
Wines of superior quality also fetch higher prices with the passage of time. Wines from the Burgundy region of France and California in the U.S. are such wines.
This entry was posted on Monday, May 3rd, 2010 at 12:50 pm and is filed under Wines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.